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May 2, 2018

Read time: 4min

Disruptors: the finserv challenge

Market Logic Team

In our ‘Disruptors’ webinar series, we look at industries undergoing major changes, inviting experts to explain key trends and what insights and intelligence professionals can do to tackle them. Here we concentrate on the FinServ challenge. 

The webinar ‘Tackle finserv disruption with faster speed to insight’ discusses how the industry is changing like never before, with new banks, new policies and new possibilities emerging fast across more than a hundred markets worldwide. It’s a time of great opportunity and great risk, and for intelligence and insights professionals looking to navigate the new landscape, the stakes are high. There’s more to learn, less time to learn it, and a growing understanding that, for strong ROI, speed is of the essence.

To guide us through the major disruptions and to take on the Finserv challenge, we heard from three experts in the field. Tony Smith, Global Head of the Financial Services division of Ipsos worldwide, Nitin Bhas, Head of Research at Juniper Research, and Martin Rückert, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Market Logic, who explained how Insights Platform delivers the speed professionals need to keep abreast of these dramatic shifts.

The speakers identified four major disruptors shaking up the global Finserv sector and explaining the Finserv challenge:

Open banking

On 13th January 2018, European directive PSD2 came into force in all 28 EU member nations, meaning banks in those countries now share data with third-party providers looking to give customers simpler, smarter services. Other countries are already looking into the use of Open APIs and Finserv platforms, including Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia, while Australia is exploring the creation of a framework for Telcos and utilities.

Blockchain

Juniper Research predicts that 2018 will be the year we see mass blockchain deployment in the Finserv industry as the technology enters the mainstream. According to their research, six in ten large corporations around the world are either actively considering or already in the process of deploying blockchain technology.

Neo and challenger banks

Defined as FinTech players aiming to disrupt traditional retail banking with superior features at lower fees or for free, the past 24 months have seen the emergence of a number of digital-only banks in Europe and Asia, with open banking developments set to energize the trend.

Digital transformation in retail banking

Whether investing in digital infrastructure, setting up digital banks, or acquiring FinTech providers, traditional banks are investing in a digital future. Rather than develop their own digital strategies and services, many are either seeking them from FinTech vendors or nurturing FinTech startups directly, according to Juniper Research.

As the speakers explained, each of these disruptors has major implications for the industry. Open APIs, for example, mean tech providers are set to enter the market alongside traditional players. That means more competition, but also encourages collaboration between established entities and the newcomers.

“Banks will protect their customer relationships,” said Tony Smith. “At the moment, they act like supermarkets, offering their own white-label products for everything. In the future, we may see them become more like department stores, protecting those relationships by giving customers greater utility and choice.”

FinServ challenge

Market research in the wake of a major disruptor is a real challenge. But when four interrelated disruptors hit at the same time, that challenge is immeasurably more complex, as researchers confront an explosion of fresh, interlocking data arriving from multiple sources. What’s more, the pace of change means that new research gets old fast, and insights professionals need to use every tool at their disposal to stay abreast of developments and deliver a return on insight.

Martin Rückert demonstrated how Market Logic’s Insights Platform plays a vital role in pulling together research and parsing it for analysis, delivering speed to insight that matches the pace of change.